Album Review: Emotion, by Carly Rae Jepsen

At 29, Carly Rae Jepsen is working hard to prove to her industry she hasn’t peaked.

The Canadian Idol also-ran is trying to steer away from the crash that comes after the sugar high of a ubiquitous, chart-busting supernova like “Call Me Maybe”; the kind of song that only comes around every half decade to transcend the battlelines of kitsch and cool like some kind of pop treaty (and, as with most of them, ends its relevance with a “Weird Al” parody).

Even three years later, her big reintroduction single, “I Really Like You” (the title of which is missing about fifteen “reallys”), should have been a home-run. An obvious (calculated?) remake of “Maybe”, it was undeniably irresistible. And still it flopped, comparatively speaking. The only charts it busted were in Croatia and Scotland. The tune couldn’t even crack the Top 10 of her home country. Canada liked it, maybe?

It’s the kind of disappointing showing that might see her relegated to the one-hit wonder graveyard where Daniel Powter awaits, his curled, skeletal finger beckoning her towards him for eternal obscurity.

The tragedy – if the slightly underwhelming chart performance of a talented and very wealthy musician can ever be described as such – is that she doesn’t deserved to be buried alongside the Daniel Powters of the world. Not yet.

Emotion, the album on which “IRLY” belongs to, is so much more evolved than its lead single indicates.

New-wavy centrepiece “All That” is a much closer match to the rest of the album’s temperature; an ‘80s flavoured torch song co-written by Dev Hynes (of Blood Orange) and Ariel Rechtshaid (producer of Sky Ferreira’s Night Time, My Time, which is basically Emotion’s spiritual sister).

For those who want confection, there’s the Sia (by-way-of-early-Kylie) penned “Boy Problems”, which sees co-author Ms. Furler return to her perky “You’ve Changed” days.

For those seeking groove, there’s the breathy “Gimmie Love”.

For those after mild moodiness, there’s “Making the Most of the Night”, “Let’s Get Lost” and “LA Hallucinations”, whose titles paint a picture of night driving through neon landscapes as much as the music does. Same goes for opener “Run Away With Me”, a song with J-Pop influences so striking you can practically hear the Pachinko machines in the background.

On and on it goes, and track for track, Emotion holds its own against Taylor Swift’s juggernaut 1989; the difference in their quality comes from the personality of its singers.

Swift, for better or worse, has constructed a wildly complicated persona over the years; Jepsen, on the other hand, seems nice? There's little else we can take away about her based on this album. Both performers can carry a tune. Only one, seemingly, can carry a character.

But there’s a way forward for Jepsen, and she reveals it on “Your Type”.

In it, she recites the typical, coquettish lyrics of loving some dude who, spoiler alert, loves someone else.

However, when the chorus kicks in, her otherwise impeccably youthful voice channels a lower register, and with Katy Perry-esque volume she belts him farewell. Finally, the album title comes true.

Carly Rae Jepsen made a hit by mimicking teenage infatuation. She can make a career by telling the next part of her story, not just by retelling the first. Emotion, mostly, does just that.

3.5/5

Emotion is now available.